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Section Two
General Remarks on His Life
Remarks on His Life in Pondicherry after 1926
On His Retirement
What harm would there be if you would talk for a few minutes to each sadhak at least once a year?
There would be no gain from it and my retirement is necessary for the inner work. 25 May 1933
*
When will you come out of your retirement?
That is a thing of which nothing can be said at present. My retirement had a purpose and that purpose must first be fulfilled. 25 August 1933
*
The psychic is not responsible for my aloofness or retirement it is the mass of opposition that I have to face which is responsible for that. It is only when I have overcome by the aid of the psychic and (excuse me!) your other bête noire, the supermind, that the retirement can cease. 21 January 1935
*
Sardar Vallabhbhai asked X when you would come out and guide people. X replied that that was not to be expected. I rather suspect that Vallabhbhai spoke sarcastically and X failed to catch it.
Perhaps not. Vallabhbhai is not likely to understand more than others that a spiritual life can be led by me without a view to a comeback hereafter for the greatest good of the greatest India (or world). Tagore expected the latter and is much disappointed
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that I have not done it. 9 March 1935
* Will you come out of your retirement after the supramental descent?
That will be decided after the descent. 23 September 1935
*
[SWAMI SAMBUDDHANANDA:] In connection with the celebration of the Birth Centenary of Sri Ramakrishna, a Parliament of Religions will be held in Calcutta from the 1st to 7th March, 1937. It is the unanimous and seriously considered view of the organisers that nobody in India today is in a more appropriate position than you are to direct the proceedings of the Inter national Assembly. We shall be highly obliged if you would kindly consent to preside over the session of the Parliament.
Write to him on my behalf that I regret I am unable to accept his invitation as I have adopted a rule of life which prevents me from appearing in public or taking any personal part in public activities. This rule is still valid for me and I am unable to depart from it. Or perhaps you [Sri Aurobindo’s secretary] can type the answer as from me and I will sign it. 17 October 1936
On His Modified Retirement after 1938
By the way, no one sees me daily and talks with me except the Mother and those who have been in attendance on me since the accident. Anything to the contrary you may have heard is incorrect. 31 March 1942
*
My retirement is nothing new, even the cessation of contact by correspondence is nothing new, it has been there now for a long time. I had to establish the rule not out of personal preference or likes or dislikes, but because I found that the correspondence occupied the greater part of my time and my energies
Page – 36 and there was a danger of my real work remaining neglected and undone if I did not change my course and devote myself to it, while the actual results of this outer activity were very small — it cannot be said that it resulted in the Asram making a great spiritual progress. Now in these times of world-crisis when I have had to be on guard and concentrated all the time to prevent irremediable catastrophes and have still to be so and when, besides, the major movement of the inner spiritual work needs an equal concentration and persistence, it is not possible for me to abandon my rule. (Moreover, even for the individual sadhak it is in his interest that this major spiritual work should be done, for its success would create conditions under which his difficulties could be much more easily overcome.) All the same I have broken my rule, and broken it for you alone; I do not see how that can be interpreted as a want of love and a hard granite indifference. 29 May 1942
*
It is not possible to accept his suggestion about joining with those who are in personal attendance upon me. They were not admitted as a help to their sadhana but for practical reasons. In fact here also there is some misconception. Continual personal contact does not necessarily bring out the action of the Force. Hriday had that personal contact with Ramakrishna and the opportunity of personal service to him, but he received nothing except on one occasion and then he could not contain the Force and the realisation which the Master put into him. The feeling of losing himself which X had was on the special occasions of the Darshan and the pranam to the Mother. That he had this response shows that he can answer to the Force, that he has the receptivity, as we say, and that is a great thing; all do not have it and those who have it are not always conscious of its cause but only of its result. But he should reason less and rather try to keep himself open as he was in those moments. The Force is not a matter for reasoning or theory but of experience. If I have written about the Force, it is because both the Mother and myself have had many thousand experiences in which it acted
Page – 37 and produced results of every kind. This idea of the Force has nothing to do with theory or reasoning but is felt constantly by every Yogin; it is part of his yogic consciousness and his constant spiritual activity. 18 May 1945
Demands on His Time
It is quite impossible for me to do any literary work (original or revision) just now, if that is what he wants. July 1930
*
As to the book, I am afraid I have no time for such things. The twenty-four hours are already too short for what I have to do. 3 September 1930
*
Sri Aurobindo regrets his inability to accept the position offered to him in connection with the Indian Research Institute, with the objects of which he has every sympathy, as he would be unable to discharge the obligations however light attached to the position. All his time and energies are occupied by his own work and he has made it a rule to abstain from all other activities in order to give to this his undivided attention. 11 July 1933
*
I hope that will be éclaircissement enough for you — for I have no time for more — certainly none for writing sonnets — my energy is too occupied in very urgent and pressing things (quite apart from correspondence) to “dally with the rhythmic line”. 2 August 1934
*
Won’t you please look at my essay tomorrow and give me your impression of it, pointing out, of course, whatever awkwardness of style that might draw your attention?
Page – 38 Let the floods pass! let the floods pass! I have four eight-twelve-sixteen-page letters still unanswered, one in Bengali closely written, one in Gujarati (decently large letters), one in Hindi (close-packed) and one in English. How the belettered devil am I to deal with essays under such polypageous circumstances? 23 February 1935
*
My only free time is between 9.30 and 10.30 or 11 at night. What can one write in an hour or an hour and a half?
Good Lord! what can one write in 1 or 1½ hour? If I could only get that time for immortal productions every day! Why in another three years Savitri and Ilion and I don’t know how much more would be all written, finished, resplendently complete. 6 December 1935
*
Sri Krishna must have had more leisure than you have. In those days the art of writing had not developed so much and so he had not to reply to questions, though sometimes he had sudden calls as when Durvasa came with a host of thousands of disciples asking for food when there was not a morsel. Perhaps he had to perform more miracles than you have to, though I should not forget that constant calls must be coming to you also for help in illnesses and many others in many ways. Moreover, Sri Krishna never actually became the Guru of a number of people.
Well, he may have been rather wise in that and fortunate in the infrequency of correspondence in those days — but that did not save him. There is a poignant chapter in the Mahabharat describing his miseries and bothers with his people in Dwarka which is very illuminating. Unfortunately I have forgotten where it is. The calls don’t matter much, for putting the Force is a subjective thing which does not take time, except in cases when it is a daily or frequently recurring difficulty. As for Durvasa if he turned up, it would be met by an order to X "Go and manage" or else an intimation to Durvasa not to be unreasonable. 4 September 1936
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What about my planning to read Meredith, Hardy, Shelley, Keats and the Continental and Russian writers?
Lord, Sir, I wish I had time to follow out a programme as massive as yours. I have none even to dilate upon yours. 22 September 1936
Reading in Pondicherry
I said to a visitor, “Sri Aurobindo has not read a single book in the last twenty years yet there is no knowledge in the world that is unknown to him.”
That is a rather excessive statement. I have learned my own philosophy from Adhar Das, for instance, and read something about Sunlight Treatment for the eyes, etc. etc. 17 January 1935
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I have not Boccaccio’s tales. I am afraid my library is mainly composed of my own and the sadhaks’ works and books presented to me by people as a personal offering which I can’t therefore send to the library — and some stray volumes, dictionaries etc. — that is all. 16 February 1935
Passing Away of Customary Illnesses
I may say that I see no reason for alarm or apprehension about my eyesight; it has happened before and I was able to recover, even getting a better reading eyesight than before. These things are for me a question of the working of the Yogic force. Many customary illnesses have passed away from me permanently after an intimation that they would occur no more. In my last days in Calcutta that happened with regard to colds in the head, and when I was in the rue des Missions Etrangères with regard to fever. I had no cold or fever after that. So also with regard to things like the bad cough I had for many years; it was intimated some time ago that these things would fade out, and it has been
Page – 40 so happening — only vestiges remain. So it will happen with what ailments remain, I expect. 25 February 1945
Correspondence and Literary Work, 1948 1949
As for my going far away, your feeling is based on my slackness in giving answers to your letters but this slackness had no such cause. My love and affection have remained always the same and it is regrettable if by my slackness in answering your letters I have produced the impression that I was moving farther and farther away from you. I think your recent letters have been mostly about persons recommended for Darshan or applying for it or about accommodation, things which have to be settled by the Mother, and these were naturally most conveniently conveyed to you through X‘s oral answer. I suppose I must have unduly extended that method of answer to other matters. I must admit that for many reasons the impulse of letter writing and literary productivity generally have dwindled in me almost to zero and that must have been the real cause of my slackness. The first reason is my inability to write with my own hand, owing to the failure of the sight and other temporary reasons; the sight is improving but the improvement is not so rapid as to make reading and writing likely in the immediate future. Even Savitri is going slow, confined mainly to revision of what has already been written, and I am as yet unable to take up the completion of Parts II and III which are not yet finally revised and for which a considerable amount of new matter has to be written. It is no use going into all the thousand and one reasons for this state of things, for that would explain and not justify the slackness. I know very well how much you depend on my writing in answer to your letters as the one physical contact left which helps you and I shall try in future to meet the need by writing as often as possible. 10 July 1948
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As to my silence, this does not arise from any change of feeling towards you or any coldness or indifference. I have not
Page – 41 concealed from you the difficulty I feel now that I cannot write my own letters or, generally, do my own writing but I do not think I have neglected anything you have asked for when you have written. There is the question of the interview which you want to publish, but this I have to consider carefully as to what parts can be published as soon as I have been able to go through it. At the moment I have been very much under pressure of work for the Press which needed immediate attention and could not be postponed, mostly correction of manuscripts and proofs; but I hope to make an arrangement which will rid me of most of this tedious and uninteresting work so that I can turn my time to better purposes. I am conscious all the same that my remissness in writing has been excessive and that you have just cause for your complaint; but I hope to remedy this remissness in future as it is not at all due to any indifference but to a visitation of indolence of the creative will which has extended even to the completion of the unfinished parts of Savitri. I hope soon to get rid of this inability, complete Savitri and satisfy your just demand for more alertness in my correspondence with you. 4 March 1949
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You also seem to have misunderstood something I said to X about pressure and difficulties as indicating some unwillingness on my part to write to you; nothing was farther from my mind, I said that only to explain my remissness in writing to you before. I was not referring to the pressure caused by the necessity of hastening the publication of my yet unpublished books or those that need to be republished — there is much work of that kind pressing to be done and much else not pressing but still needing to be done while there is still time, such as The Future Poetry or other works like the first part of Savitri which has to be revised for early publication in book-form. All that could have nothing to do with it — I was referring only to personal difficulties of my own and the difficulties concerning the Ashram which I had to face and which owing to their gravity and even danger had too much preoccupied my mind. That I have mentioned as an
Page – 42 explanation of my earlier remissness and not as an excuse, — there could be no valid excuse. Certainly, that had nothing to do with your present trouble and the letter, — the present one, — which I had sent word through X that I was starting to write yesterday. 7 December 1949
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